how does system variables and user variables work

Question

i configured maven home in uservaribles and tested it using the command mvn --version ,system proment me as "mvn is not a command" . But if i configure it to System variables its working. i did configuring to system variables in my laptop. But at my office i dnt have previlage of changing system variables.

Here my question is.

a) Why system recognises when it is configured from system variable but not in user variables

b) is there any alternative to configure it and work smoothly at my office laptop.

Answer 1

well what I did at my job (I was having the same problem) is making a user variable that's called PATH, to the binaries. And then it seems to work here.

1. Right click my computer
2. Click on properties
3. On the left you will find advanced system settings (windows 7). Click on it
4. Then go to the tab Advanced and click on Environment Variables
5. Now create a new user variable with the name PATH and the value, is the path to your maven installation. (eg: C:\maven\bin)